CHAPTER 12 : 1/2 Letting Go

The air in the recovery room was thick with the smell of cheap disinfectant. Ren lay on an iron bed, his eyes red from insomnia. Beside him were the other "greenhorns" who were resting quietly. Tetsuo was just examining Saki's arm.

"Your condition is stable, but your chains... they have started to eat your skin. You overexerted yourself during battle, to which your immune system responded with a faulty reaction," he said.

"You must rest. You definitely need to keep coming back here for another 2-3 days."

Ren was not paying attention to them. His gaze was fixed on the garage beyond the window. He saw the Unit 7 van. Gaiku was trying to pull Kenji down from the roof of the trunk, and Ryaku was looking at the scars under the bandage on his hand in the passenger seat of the car. Kana took out her Tamagotchi with a bored motion when she got into the car.

They departed. Without me, thought Ren.

The hum of the engine slowly died away in the distance. Ren clenched his hands into fists as he gripped the bedsheet. A caustic guilt burned in his stomach.

"You are a coward. You lie here while they might die. Because you are afraid of your past."

He reached under his pillow. The last Diazepam pill was there. His escape route. The pill glowed white in the gloom, like a tiny, lying star in the sky above the wall.

"Don't do it," Saki spoke softly. The girl was no longer lying on her bed but had stepped next to Ren's bed. In her white eyes, there was only deep darkness, as if they had seen the poison in the boy's hand.

"I have to... to make them fall silent," Ren whispered, and raised his hand toward his mouth.

"Then they will never go away," said Saki.

Ren's hand stopped. He looked at the pill. Suddenly, a terrible anger washed over him. Not against the world, not against Shirakawa, but against himself.

Slowly, methodically, he crushed the pill between his fingers. The white powder fell to the floor, then mixed with the dust on the floor.

Ren decided to face it; in the evening when everyone was already asleep, for Ren, the walls of the room melted away. He was in the piano room again. But now he was not looking at the marble. He stared straight into the porcelain little girl's face. The little girl screamed, her voice wanting to shatter Ren's eardrums. The air was cold, radiating the smell of expensive perfume and death. But now he was not looking at the black, blood-stained marble. He stared straight into the porcelain little girl's face. The little girl screamed, her voice wanting to shatter Ren's eardrums.

"What do you want from me? How can you look at me?!" howled the distorted child, then suddenly disappeared.

In her place, Ren's mother appeared. Her face was pitch-black from the explosion.

"It happened because of you!" the woman screamed. "Because of your lies!"

Ren did not reach for his ears. He did not close his eyes.

"I know, Mother," Ren said, and his voice did not tremble now. Cold, pure rationality and profound pain mixed within it.

"I was the courier. I carried the bag in the dark. I wanted the money, I wanted a better life for you and for myself too."

"And I killed you."

Under the weight of the words, the illusion of the piano room trembled. The marble floor suddenly cracked apart with a deafening noise. The darkness crashed down into the fissure, and when Ren looked around again, the suffocating walls had disappeared.

He found himself in the middle of a forest. Although it was overcast, it was peaceful, the fresh scent of autumn wafted in the air. Opposite him, a forest path wound its way.

Three people stood on the path. On the right, his father in his usual, worn-out coat, his face cheerful. On the left, his mother in her silk-like blouse. And in the middle stood little, six-year-old Ren, holding his parents' hands.

The adult Ren looked over. His own face was cold. He touched it... and felt it. A cracked, snow-white porcelain mask covered his face. The exact same mask that the little girl had worn earlier.

Suddenly, time stopped in the forest. The tree leaves froze in the air. The six-year-old, little Ren let go of his parents' hands, turned on his heel, and mutely, with a motionless face, looked up at his adult, tormented self. There was no fear in the child's eyes, only pure, innocent understanding.

Ren looked at his own childhood self. He slowly sank to his knees in the dust to get on the same level as the little boy.

Little Ren raised his tiny hand. He didn't say a single word. He gently touched the porcelain mask on the adult Ren's face. The child's touch was warm.

Under the little boy's fingers, the porcelain cracked softly, delicately. Then, with a single, clean motion, the little one pulled the mask off his face.

As the porcelain detached, Ren felt as if a hundredweight weight had rolled off his chest. The mask, as it reached the child's hand, immediately crumbled into black dust, and flew away in the forest wind.

The little boy sent a faint, final smile toward him, then took a step backward. The sun came out. As his body merged with the soft lights of the forest, he simply disappeared. He faded into the past, where he belonged.

Ren remained there, kneeling. His face was his own again. He felt the tears on his face, but these were no longer black, caustic Ink-tears, but salty, human tears.

He stood up slowly. He stepped over to his mother and his father. His parents reached out their hands toward him.

Ren took his father's hand with his right hand, and his mother's hand with his left, snow-white porcelain arm.

"We are proud of you, Ren," his father said quietly.

"Don't consume yourself any longer, my little one," his mother whispered, and squeezed his porcelain fingers. "Our time has passed. But yours is only just beginning. Live. Fight. And protect those who are still by your side."

They set off. The three of them, together, walked along the forest path for the last time. Ren told them everything he couldn't in life. He told them how sorry he was for the secrets, he talked to them about the Kurogane clan, the Ink, the wall, and Aiko. His parents just listened, and with every step, the landscape became increasingly peaceful.

When the mountain road opened onto a bright flowery hill, his parents stopped, and let go of his hands.

Ren knew that this was the end.

"I love you," he said, and his voice was full of gratitude and endless sadness.

"I will never forget you." Then he hugged them.

"We know, my son," his father smiled. "And now, wake up."

The figures of his parents and the forest path slowly, beautifully faded away in the light.

Ren took a deep breath of the forest air and watched as the forest and the hill also disappeared from beneath his feet. The suffocating, black knot in his stomach vanished. He accepted it. And he let go of the past.

Ren sat there on the bed, panting, soaking wet at 3 a.m. But his head was clear. For the first time in weeks.

The next morning, pale, yellowish light filtered in through the dusty window of the infirmary. Ren slowly scrambled up from the bed, and noticed Saki, who was sitting on the windowsill, hugging her knees. The girl was staring at the distant, smog-filled horizon. Ren stepped over to her, and carefully sat down on the edge of the sill.

"Thank you for yesterday, Saki," he spoke softly.

"For stopping me. I think... I needed someone to not let me run away from myself."

Saki slowly turned toward him. A moment of confusion flashed in her white eyes, then she shook her head.

"I owe you my thanks, Ren. You saved my life when the Feast was about to strike me down."

Ren looked at his hands.

"Up there, everything was so different," Ren began, and his voice cracked.

"I went to school. Kinkyo Private High School. In the mornings, my mother ironed every single wrinkle out of my shirt. We just sat there for hours, and listened to the teachers."

"Wait..." Saki turned to him with wide eyes, with childlike disbelief.

"School? What is that? Was it a place where you had a desk that... that was only yours? You didn't have to fight for it? And books? Which you didn't use for heating, but read?" –

Ren smiled faintly at the girl's innocent marveling.

"Yes. And because of all the knowledge they imparted. I also had a ballpoint pen. Sometimes its blue ink leaked in my pocket, and my mother scolded me for hours over it, while she tried to wash it out. Back then I thought that was the biggest tragedy in the world. How ridiculous..." Ren's face darkened.

"My father stood up so proudly in his worn-out suit. He thought his son had finally broken out of the filth. But I lied to them. They thought I got in only with my brains, but in reality, I was working as a courier for the mafia. The money I gave home wasn't a scholarship, but blood money. When I saw their license plate, amidst the flaming wreckage... I knew that I had killed them. My selfishness and greed cost them their lives," he said, and his eyes filled with tears.

Saki listened in silence, her chains rattled softly on her wrists, as if vibrating out of empathy.

"I never had things of my own," the girl whispered, and her voice carried a deeper pain than Ren could imagine.

"We lived on the edge of the 15th district, where the mold was already chewing our little house from the inside of the walls. My father grew medicinal mushrooms in the damp cellars which he could sell to the village people of the 15th district, and my mother patched the villagers' clothes turning night into day. They loved me, Ren. They loved me so much that it hurt. Then a Discard appeared.It was a huge, rusty Padlock. It looked like distorted steel armor. One night we woke up to something Locking onto our house, and suddenly I felt their fear... but they weren't afraid of the monster."

Saki's eyes filled with tears, but she didn't let them fall. The monster lived by eating its victims' consciousness, then their bodies. Before that, it spun out all the guilt within a person.

"...in their final moments, they begged me to forgive them. With her last words, my mother apologized for not being able to give me nice clothes, or a place where I wouldn't have to go hungry. I heard the metal pierce through them, and I saw in their eyes that terrible guilt for having 'abandoned' me. But I never thought they abandoned me. I loved Papa and Mama very much. I never felt that I was disadvantaged in any way because I was their child. But my guilt... the fact that I stood there and could not do anything, was much stronger than theirs. It was stronger than the monster's. The Padlock tried to drain my mind, but it drowned in the hatred and pain I felt toward myself. I defeated it from the inside, but this was the price..." She raised her chained arm.

"The chains have grown to me ever since."

Saki rested her forehead against the windowpane.

"Since then, everyone just sees the monster in me. They thought I summoned it, that I called it there. For years I was alone in the dark. Do you know how many times I tried to speak to someone? But as soon as they heard the clinking of the chains, they ran away. Nobody wanted to be the friend of a girl who 'carries death.' Only my mother's story kept me alive. She said that on the edge of the 17th district, on top of an old water tower, there is a place: 'The Silver Eye.' A lookout point where there is no smog, and you can see the stars. She always said that when I got older, I would have friends and I could happily watch the stars with them. When I asked her what friends were, she said they are the people who accept and love you along with all your flaws. It became my obsession. I longed for it so much, to have someone I could just sit there with and watch the sky, so I wouldn't be alone, but nobody ever came for me."

Ren felt a lump growing in his throat. He took the girl's hand—the meeting of porcelain and chain was a strange, cold feeling, yet in this moment, it was the most human touch he had ever received.

"Then you don't have to wait anymore, Saki," Ren said firmly, and looked deep into the girl's eyes.

"I promise you. As soon as we bring Unit 7 home, and we are done with the Shirakawa clan, I will take you to that lookout. You won't stand there alone. I will be there as your friend. We will watch those stars your mom told you about."

Saki suddenly snapped her head up. Her face turned deep red in moments, the flush running across her pale face all the way to the tips of her ears. Her heart was hammering so fiercely that she felt the throbbing in her throat. Nobody had ever promised her anything before. Nobody had ever looked at her as if she were the most important person in the world. In this moment, she fell in love, in a desperate, pure, and painful way.

"But what... Aren't we what we are?... why are you doing this for me?"

"Because you are my friend, and because you are important to me," Ren said, and smiled at her.

"P-promise?" she whispered with a trembling voice, as she tried to hide her burning face.

"Will you really... take me? Me?"

"I promise, Saki. I swear on my parents' memory," Ren nodded.

Saki turned away in embarrassment. In this moment, she no longer felt only gratitude. But rather that power, for which a Recycels would be capable of tearing down the Wall with their bare hands.

The silence that vibrated between Ren and Saki was suddenly broken by a distant, deep rumble. The concrete walls trembled softly as Unit 7's armored van rolled into the base's lower garage. Ren immediately tensed, but this time not from fear, but from anticipation.

"They came back..." Ren whispered, and his face lit up.

"Saki, look, they've arrived!"

A few minutes later, the heavy iron door flung open with a screech. Gaiku stepped in first, his coat was still sooty, and his gaze was tired. Ren did not wait for the captain to speak. He sprang up from the sill, and almost ran to them.

Ren grabbed Gaiku's arm, and smiled broadly.

"Gaiku! God, it's so good to see you all!" Ren said with such genuine fervor that the cigarette almost fell out of the captain's mouth.

"Is everyone safe? Were you not hurt? I was so worried while you were away!"

Gaiku froze. Ryaku, who had just stepped in at the end of the line, stopped and stared at the boy with furrowed brows. Kana's eyes widened, and the two oil-stained paper bags almost slipped from her hands.

"What... what's with you?" Kana asked suspiciously, pulling back a step.

"Did you hit your head while we weren't here? Or did you find some expired happiness pill in the trash?"

Ren let go of Gaiku's arm, and turned to Kana. He grabbed the girl's shoulders—carefully, but amicably—and looked deep into her eyes.

"No, Kana. I put it all down. I am clean," Ren said, and his voice was ringing, free from all previous dullness.

"Finally, I don't see you through a fog. It feels so damn good that you are here with me. Thank you for taking care of me."

Kana blushed—this was something that occurred more rarely in the 16th district than snowfall—and in her embarrassment, she shoved a greasy paper parcel into his hands.

"Alright, alright, don't get all sappy on me here, or else you'll end up ruining my appetite!" she babbled, but she didn't pull away from Ren's touch.

"Here, have it. Double Mega-Mochi-Burger. It's still warm."

"Ahem, I'm glad you're clean." Ryaku cleared his throat, and ostentatiously turned his head away, although out of the corner of his eye he continuously watched Ren.

"But at least I don't have to fear that tomorrow morning you'll drown in your own drool on your bed. That's progress."

Gaiku looked at Ren long and silently, then smiled. He leaned closer, and inhaled the air deeply.

"Hm. You really don't have a chemical smell. Your gaze is clearer than ever," the captain said, and slapped Ren's shoulder amicably but firmly.

"Good job, kid. I admit, I was starting to get tired of having to talk to a zombie."

Kenji suddenly dropped down from the ceiling beam, right next to Ren. His neck cracked once as he sniffed around the boy, as if studying a new animal species.

"The bitter fog that surrounded him has blown away," Kenji said.

"Kenji likes your new scent. Stay like this."

Ren looked at the burger in his hand, then at his team. At Gaiku, who was just asking Ryaku for a light; and Kana, who was already stuffing Saki with french fries, as if she were feeding a little kitten; and at Kenji, who was chewing on a napkin contentedly.

"I really thank you," Ren said more quietly, but every word of his carried weight.

"Also for bringing dinner. Sit down, tell me what happened out there!"

Ryaku just waved dismissively, and sat down next to one of the old Pachinko machines, Saki pulled closer to Ren, her face was still flushed, but the sense of security that the boy's change and the team's return gave her triumphed over everything.

As they sat there among the machines, in the smell of the burger and the french fries, Ren realized: even in the deepest depths of hell, one can find something that resembles happiness. This was the first night when Ren laid his head down having let go of the past, and with the knowledge that he was finally not alone.

The morning sunlight filtered through the dirty windows of the Pachinko parlor in a dusty, feeble way.

Ren stood at the edge of the room, but his posture was no longer that of the previous boy dulled by guilt and Diazepam. In the middle of the room, Tetsuo was just pointing at a vibrating monitor. The blue light illuminated the gathered members eerily. The footage was a recorded image from a security camera of a hospital corridor.

On the image, some amorphous, dark mass was crawling on a crumbling concrete wall. It had no fixed shape, its body constantly changed: sometimes sharp, blade-like protrusions erupted from it, other times it collapsed into a slimy, tar-like mass that consumed the space around it. The Ink evaporated from the creature like thick, black steam.

"This is not a simple Discard," Tetsuo muttered, while he fiddled with the data logger held in his hand.

"According to my measurements, this is another hybrid discard."

The captain leaned against the wall, the black lines of the tattoos on his arms still throbbed darker than usual since the feast. He deeply inhaled the cigarette smoke, the ember glowing red in the gloom.

"If one of these activates again, the chain reaction could infect entire districts."

"It was last seen in the old hospital on the border of the district. It is still in its developmental phase, it's unstable. We have to catch it now, before it fully develops, and Akihito unleashes it upon our necks," said Tetsuo.

Gaiku slowly blew out the smoke. The silence weighed down on the room like a weight. Everyone knew exactly what it meant to face a hybrid. The destruction of Unit 4 was still too fresh a wound.

Gaiku turned toward Saki, who was standing next to Ren. Her fragile figure was almost lost in the darkness, nervously weaving her trembling fingers around the chains wrapped around her wrists. The "Shackles of Guilt" clinked softly as the girl felt the captain's attention.

"Saki," Gaiku broke the silence, and his voice was unusually serious.

"Your chains feed on guilt. You will be the key. If the hybrid changes form, you have to chain that bastard to the ground, until Ryaku and Ren get close to its core. Are you capable of it?"

Saki's fingers stopped on the chain links. She took a deep, trembling breath, then nodded firmly.

"I will handle it," she whispered.

"Then everyone get ready," Gaiku issued the order, and crushed out his cigarette on the edge of the metal table.

"We are heading to the hospital. It's time to give a little trauma back to the Shirakawa clan. Oh, and Saki. As of now, you are officially a member."

Kana jumped up onto one of the tables, and threw a Unit 7 patch to the girl. Saki caught the badge, her hand was trembling, but her gaze was resolute.

Inside the van, a very strong tension was present. Ren sat on the floor, and looked at his porcelain arm. Saki got a seat right next to Ren, her shoulder occasionally brushing against the boy's when the car hit a bump.

Kana, who was kneeling on the passenger seat turned backward, had been staring at Saki for minutes.

"Well, tell me already, Chain-girl!" Kana suddenly spoke up, and popped a huge bubble with her chewing gum.

"Why does your head turn red every time Ren looks at you? Or has the Ink-rot just gone to your brain?"

Saki immediately averted her gaze, and started yanking her chains. Her face turned the color of a cherry in an instant.

"I-I... I don't know what you are talking about, Kana-san. It's just hot in the car."

"Hot?" Kana laughed out loud, and jerked her head toward Ryaku.

"Look at Ryaku, he's literally an icicle. Don't bullshit me! What's between you two? Did Ren promise to marry you over the ruins of the 16th district?"

"Kana, stop it," Ren interjected.

"Saki was just helping me when... I was unwell."

"Sure, 'helped'," Kana dragged out the word mockingly.

"Then came the big confession about the lookout and the stars. Kenji heard it through the vent! He said the whole thing was so sappy that he almost slid off the ceiling."

Kenji, hanging upside down from the roof:

"They had a very... sweet... smell."

Saki would have loved to just sink into the floor by now. Her chains clinked softly as she tried to hide her face behind her hair.

"We are just... just friends. Ren is my friend. He promised to take me to a place... because I am important to him," the girl whispered, and although she tried to remain serious, a tiny, happy smile still appeared at the edge of her lips.

"Friends, huh?" Kana leaned back with satisfaction.

"Listen, Ren, if you hurt the little girl, I will personally shoot your other arm full of nails too. Clear?"

Ren only nodded.

The girl looked at the toes of her shoes in embarrassment.

The joking was ended by Gaiku, who shouted back from behind the steering wheel.

"Stop the romantic drama! We've arrived."

As they stepped in through the main entrance, the air suddenly turned ice-cold. Overturned wheelchairs lay behind the reception desk, rotting wallpaper hung in shreds from the walls. The darkness was broken only by the sweeping light of their flashlights. From deep within the corridors, a soft, rhythmic dripping could be heard, which echoed like a slow heartbeat.

"Something is very wrong," whispered Ren.

"If a hybrid Discard were here, we would feel it, its power would almost throb in the air. But here there are only old medicines and... and some strange, clean scent. Is this an expensive perfume?"

"Kenji, Kana, check the ceiling and the side corridors. Stay together. Do not break formation," Gaiku said, rolling an unlit cigarette in his mouth. His eyes scanned the dark ceiling.

Reaching the second floor, the corridor opened into a wider, former operating block. Tiled walls, rusted operating tables. And then the silence changed. It wasn't simply mute, but suffocating, as if something had forcefully sucked the sounds out of the space.

Ren took a step, but his boots did not click on the stone. Kana popped a bubblegum bubble, but the sound was muted in the air.

"Watch out!" Ren tried to cry out, but his voice stuck in his throat. Not a single sound left his lips.

Before anyone could react, a massive shroud plummeted downward from the pitch-black shadows of the ceiling. Black and snow-white, pulsating silk, which spread out in the air like a shroud tens of meters long. On the surface of the silk, in the gloom, a thousand tiny, mute mouths gaped, and distorted, human hands reached out from the fabric, clinging desperately to nothingness.

It struck toward Kana first. The dark silk coiled around the girl's throat and chest like a snake. Kana crashed to the ground, her eyes rolling back from terror. She gaped silently; the fabric swallowed her every movement and breath.

Kenji, who was crawling on the ceiling, tried to strike down, but the fabric simply sucked his tentacles into itself, and silently slammed the boy against the wall.

Murderous instinct flared in Ryaku's eyes.

"You bastard!" he would have screamed, but remained mute. His fingers flicked the silver wires toward the darkness, but the invisible attacker was fast. With a single movement, the suffocating silk twisted onto Ryaku's wrists; from the grip, the wires snapped back, he could not control them, and then with a horrendous jerk, it slammed him against the tiled wall. Ryaku fell to the ground unconscious.

Saki tried to spin the Shackles of Guilt, but the silk was already on the floor. The distorted, shadow-hands reaching out from it grabbed the chains, and simply nailed the girl to the ground.

Ren remained the last. The Ink activated in his porcelain arm. He rushed at the swirling, black-and-white fabric, raising his arm for a strike with all his might. The hands reached toward him from the floor in vain; Ren was tremendously fast. But the fabric suddenly struck down on him from above in a massive wave, enveloping his left arm and his body.

Five seconds. That was all it took for the invisible attacker to stomp almost the entire Unit 7 into the ground.

Finally, from the darkness, from behind the retreating shroud, the attacker stepped forward.

It was not a monster. It was a girl.

She had long, straight, light hair. From under her bangs, cold, emotionless, yet deeply wounded eyes scanned the team lying on the ground. She wore loose, multi-pocketed cargo pants and a short-cut, open tactical jacket, under which stretched a translucent, mesh top. On her stomach and waist, complex tattoos reminiscent of motifs meshed her skin. The tattoos on her stomach pulsated black; from these lines flowed outward the thousands of strands of thread that formed the shroud.

She was Sora.

With a cold gaze, she looked over the silently writhing figures. An aura of invincibility surrounded her.

"A disappointment," the girl spoke.

"I thought the conquerors of the Feast could withstand more than this."

Gaiku did not move. He calmly spat his cigarette onto the ground. The dark silk shot out toward him with a dozen strands to envelop and silence him.

"Cute trick, kid," Gaiku spoke.

On one side of Gaiku's arm, the tattoos flared up in blinding black.

The gravitational field of "The Press" crashed down onto the second floor. When the suffocating shroud entered Gaiku's aura, the laws of physics simply annihilated the magic. The fabric, which until then had danced weightlessly in the air like a living creature, plummeted to the ground under the horrendous pressure of gravity. The level's foundation cracked under the invisible weight.

Surprise appeared on Sora's face for the first time. She suddenly felt her own Ink was lead-heavy. She tried to pull back the strands, but Gaiku started toward her with slow, deliberate steps. With his every step, the ground trembled.

The girl jumped up, gracefully trying to balance on the edge of the gravitational field, but Gaiku raised his hand. "Down."

The pressure wave slammed onto Sora. The girl was forced to her knees, while the dark silk strands completely retracted into her body. She gasped for air, her Ink could not bear the pressure.

Gaiku slowly lowered his hand, and the suffocating gravity ceased. Sora kneeled motionless for a moment, then slowly stood up. She wiped a drop of blood from the corner of her mouth, but her face regained that untouchable, defiant coldness.

"Unit 7 Captain. You really are strong, as the rumors say," Sora said, as she pulled a thin cigarette from her jacket's pocket, and leisurely lit it.

Sora took a deep drag from the thin cigarette. When she blew it out, the smoke wasn't gray. A thick, unnaturally swirling cyan-blue cloud of smoke left her lips, which throbbed with the energy of premium Ink in the gloom of the hospital.

The blue smoke hadn't even dispersed in the air when Sora's figure simply vanished before their eyes.

She didn't jump or run. Her speed was incomprehensible.

Ren was still kneeling on the floor, his lungs burned after the suffocation, and his porcelain arm throbbed tiredly. Only a blink of an eye passed. In the next moment, he felt the touch of an ice-cold, steel blade right on his carotid artery.

Sora was crouching behind him. The girl's left arm mercilessly pinned down Ren's chest, while the blade of the knife held in her right hand pressed against the boy's throat. The emotionless aura radiated from the girl. The smell of the cyan-blue smoke hit Ren right in the face.

"I wonder if your gravity is fast enough for this too, Captain?" Sora asked from the dark. Her voice was soft, devoid of any trembling.

Gaiku did not raise his hand. His eyes narrowed slightly as he rolled the cigarette in his mouth. He knew that if he unleashed the Weight upon them now, the girl would slit Ren's throat out of reflex before the pressure nailed her to the ground. But before Gaiku could make a move, the shadows of the ward shifted again. Sora was not alone. From the darkness, three additional figures stepped forward, silently, like ghosts. In a moment, they took control over the paralyzed Unit 7. From the ceiling, a lanky, dreadlocked boy, Jiro, descended. The Ink tattoos on his arms flared up, and the thick, yellowish, sticky mass flowing from his skin enveloped the twitching Kenji on the ceiling in moments, then froze Saki on the ground motionless, as if they had been encased in amber. Next to the unconscious Ryaku and Kana on the floor, a massive muscular woman appeared. Both of the woman's hands had transformed into crab-claw-like limbs. She pressed her left claw to Ryaku's neck, the right to Kana's face, indicating that at the slightest movement, she would finish them off. Finally, out of the darkness of the hospital corridor, an older, gray-haired man stepped forward. He wore a worn but once-elegant suit. His face was covered in deep scars. There were no visible Ink mutations on him.

Gaiku deliberately took the cigarette out of his mouth.

"An ambush, a hostage drama... and now a whole squad. And it's only noon. The day is off to a great start. What kind of Circus troupe do I have the pleasure of meeting in your persons?"

The older man stepped in front of Gaiku, maintaining a respectful distance.

"My name is Daizo," said the man.

"We belong to the clan of the 12th district." Daizo gestured with his hand toward Sora and the others. "We didn't come to kill your people."

"Then what do you want?" asked Gaiku.

Daizo's face darkened.

"The Upper World, under the leadership of Akihito Shirakawa, as you know, has begun the purge. The lab-bred Hybrids will roam the streets and consume those there. My clan's territory will be flooded by refugees. We cannot hold our borders for long."

Daizo fixed his gaze on Gaiku.

"Our clan's leadership has sent a message to the 16th district. We demand territorial concessions and asylum in the former industrial zones of the 16th district for our own people. This is the only safe zone that is left. If you refuse, then our clan will launch an armed conflict. You won't survive a two-front war either: Shirakawa's hybrids will arrive from above, and our army from below. We do not want a clan war. We just want to protect our own from the hell the Ones Above unleash upon us. But if necessary, we will trample all of you for it."

Sora, as if to emphasize Daizo's words, sank the knife a single millimeter deeper into Ren's skin. A tiny drop of blood welled up from the cut.

Gaiku clicked his tongue softly.

"I will pass the message to the Boss. But until then, Daizo..." Gaiku's eyes darkened, and his gaze flashed to Sora.

"...if your little girl puts a knife to one of my people's throats one more time, I won't care how fast or how many you are. My Weight will crush you down to the cellular level. Even before you could say anything."

Gaiku's words rang cold and dull between the walls of the operating room.

Daizo, the elderly clan leader, did not seem intimidated at all. The deep scars on his face did not even twitch. He gave a silent nod. He reached into the inner pocket of his worn suit and pulled out a thick envelope sealed with black wax. He didn't hand it to Gaiku; he simply dropped it in front of himself onto the dusty floor.

"The details are in this. You have three days to give an answer to your Boss. After that, our conditions come into effect, whether you want them or not," Daizo said.

Sora, who was still crouching behind Ren, slowly pulled the cold blade away from the boy's neck. With a single elegant, almost invisible movement, she put away the knife. She didn't look at Ren. She straightened up, and raised the thin cigarette to her mouth again.

The cyan-blue smoke left her lips again in a thick cloud. The energy of the Ink throbbed in the air.

Before the blue smoke dispersed, the figures of Sora, Jiro, Kiba, and the elderly Daizo blurred; their movement was so fast that to the members of Unit 7, it seemed as if the darkness had swallowed them in a single blink of an eye. Only the slowly descending blue smoke and the black envelope lying on the floor indicated that they had been there at all.

The suffocating tension suddenly ceased.

Ren slumped forward, coughing loudly, grabbing his throat. Ryaku angrily kicked away the leg of one of the rusted operating tables, his wires flailing wildly, uncontrollably around him. Kenji plopped down from the ceiling softly, whimpering, after the sticky yellow mass started to fray off him. Saki quietly massaged her numbed hands.

Gaiku deliberately stepped over, leaned down, and picked up the black wax-sealed envelope.

"At least they saved on postage," he said, then put the letter away in his pocket.

Kana meanwhile scrambled up from the floor. She shook the dust off her clothes, and popped her chewing gum hugely. There was no trace of the earlier terror on her face; in fact, she seemed distinctly cheerful. She reached into her pocket, and immediately started pressing buttons on her Tamagotchi.

"Well, that was exciting!" Kana spoke up, and her voice rang cheerfully in the dark hospital. She stepped over to Ren, who was still kneeling on the floor, panting, and grinning, she poked the boy's shoulder.

"Listen here, I know she just almost slit your throat, and all..." Kana pulled her mouth into a huge, mocking grin. "But let's admit it, that chick looked damn good! Those tattoos, and her hair? Like some fucking model!"

Ren looked up at her angrily, while rubbing the tiny cut on his neck. "Kana, that girl almost killed us all just now."

"Minor detail!" Kana waved it off, rolling her gum in her mouth. Her eyes twinkled mischievously.

"I saw how you looked when she was crouching there behind you. You were totally into it, weren't you? You had the face of a guy who secretly likes this sadomasochistic, bondage, knife-to-the-throat stuff!"

Ren's face burst into flames in a split second, and Saki coughed softly, embarrassedly in the background, trying very hard to look at the toes of her shoes again.

"Shut up, Kana!" Ren snapped, and angrily stood up from the floor.

"I wasn't 'into it' at all!"

"Alright, well, no need to deny it!" Kana laughed, and winked at Ryaku, who just rolled his eyes in disgust.

"At least there's a little romance in the team. Saki is the tender one, and this Sora chick is the wild beast. You're building a real harem, Porcelain Doll!"